First Date
by unfold
Summary: Inspired by a certain heartbreaking deleted scene from the Client.


I'm about a third in love with her just five minutes after she walks through the door the first time. Outside, it's September and it's raining. She walks in, shaking out an umbrella and looking around nervously.

What I notice are the curls. It's something I'll tell her later when I'm feeling strangely open. I'm positive they would feel like silk when they wrapped around my fingers. I'm looking at her hair and I'm already planning to someday be lying on a couch with her, talking about the world or the movie we just saw while I reach out for a chunk of her hair and let it wind itself around my finger. It's going to be delicate and smooth and she'll turn her head towards my hand just on instinct and smile.

I'm half in love with her when she smiles at me as I shake her hand. It's bright and genuine with these lines around her mouth that make her seem comfortable somehow.

Her name's Pam and I'm not sure how I don't notice the ring then, but I just don't.

When she sits down at the reception desk, she looks out of place. Only for a moment though and then it seems like she's been sitting there for years. I listen to her answer calls. I listen to her fingers on the keyboard. I listen to the click of her mouse as she plays solitaire.

Then I realize I can look at her too. That it's easy to glance up and see her there. That I can even just glimpse her in the corner of my eye and pretend that I'm looking at something on my computer.

And then I realize I can talk to her.

"Hey, playing solitaire?"

"Oh. Yeah. I just didn't really have anything to do so-"

"Pam," her name comes out like it's been in the back of my mind for years, "You just happen to be talking to the master of solitaire. And it is all thanks to this job."

Don't ask me how I don't notice the ring this time when both of her hands are right there, but I just don't.

She laughs and when I get home tonight, I'll stand in front of my stereo for five minutes and briefly consider never listening to music again, because this sound right now is everything.

"Hey, let me take you out to lunch today."

She looks startled, like she hasn't been asked out in years. Something about that makes my stomach sink a little.

Then she starts to nod, "Yeah- Uh, yeah. That would be nice."

I smile and I wonder how long it's been because my lips hurt. "Great. There's this really amazing sandwich place down the street."

"Sounds good."

And now I'm in love with her. Not just halfway or two-thirds, but completely. Just so suddenly and entirely in love with this new receptionist.

So I wait until 1:30. The hours beforehand seem to stretch on and on. I fill them with stealing glances at her. Her skin looks soft and I'm already thinking about whether or not I should kiss her tonight when I walk her to her car. If this lunch date goes well, I might.

Finally, I stand up and walk over to her, grabbing my coat from the rack. "Ready to eat?"

She presses a few buttons on the phones. "Definitely."

We walk despite the rain. She likes it, she says, even though she has her umbrella open before we're out of the building.

"I like the smell of it. And I like the way the air feels when it's raining."

And then she gives me this shy smile like she's letting me in on some big secret. And my stomach rises and then drops like it does on elevators, because I'm falling.

"It's not that I mind getting wet. It's just my hair doesn't react well to water."

She blushes and she's trying so hard to keep the umbrella from hitting me. So I take it from her hands and hold it over both of us. She moves a little closer to me to keep under it and I feel just the faintest warmth coming from her. I put my left hand deep in my pocket to keep me from putting my arm around her waist or her shoulders and just pulling her into me.

Lunch is only supposed to last for an hour, but we start talking and we can't stop. We swap stories about our childhood. I tell her jokes because I learn quickly that it's easy to make her laugh. And I like making her laugh. It makes something swell inside my chest.

It's been almost an hour and a half, but I can't seem to get my legs to move. And she's in the middle of some involved story that requires her hands to fly about in front of her face and her smile to spread impossibly wide.

And then it happens.

Just as I'm about to reach across the table to brush back her bangs which have once again fallen into her face and I've only just now gathered enough courage to actually do something about them. And I'm imagining that when I do brush that piece of hair back, carefully tucking it behind her ear with my fingertips lingering for just a little longer than is necessary, she'll close her eyes in this slow way and look down at her plate with that shy smile from earlier. Her cheeks will turn red and I'll just know that this is it.

My hand is in midair when I hear her mention something about her fiancé.

That's when I see the ring.

"Oh, you're engaged?"

"Yeah. Uh, you might know him. He works in the warehouse. His name's Roy."

"Oh."

It's like finding out a song you really love is actually a cover and you suddenly feel guilty for ever liking it so much, because it really belongs to someone else and you haven't even heard the original before, but you're convinced this version is so much better.

No.

It's like seeing for just a minute your entire future spread out in front of you. Years and years just unfurling before your eyes and then you wake up and you're still stuck where you've been forever and the future goes back to looking identical to the present.

Actually, it's mostly like falling in love with a girl in just a matter of hours and then finding out she's been with her fiancé since she was sixteen. And you see the way her eyes brighten when she talks about him and you know that he's everything to her and you won't ever be anything to her.

Whatever it's like, it hurts and I can't say anything to her for a while. I just let her talk about their life together and listen, nodding when it's appropriate and smiling when it feels like I should.

On the walk back, I let her have the umbrella to herself, saying that I don't mind the rain. She gives me this look, her eyes squinting a bit and her mouth forming this smile without showing any teeth.

I stand by her desk when we're finally back in the office. She's by the coat rack, hanging up her jacket and when she turns back around, she seems surprised to find me still standing there.

"What?"

I shake my head. "Nothing. I was just thinking that that would've been a pretty amazing first date if you weren't engaged."

I don't know why I say it, but it comes out and the look on her face makes me regret it almost immediately. So I laugh to make her believe that I'm kidding, that it was a joke.

"Oh. Uh, yeah." She sits down stiffly and turns to her computer.

I decide that I probably shouldn't kiss her tonight when I walk her to her car.


End file.
